I donate.

I feel like I may be writing about breast milk and breastfeeding a lot these days, maybe even too much. However, for the past 5 months and 10 days I have been nursing my daughter and/or pumping (ie feeding my robot baby) approximately every 2-3 awake hours, and at least a couple of times a night still. So to say that breast milk is a large part of my life right now would be the world's biggest understatement.

Any working and breastfeeding mom knows how intense this whole process can be. When we aren't with our little ones and allowed to simply breastfeed, we must pump, and clean pump parts, and clean bottles, and properly store and transport milk, measuring out and sending the right amounts to school, etc., etc. I am not by any means patting myself on the back. This is a choice I have made and continue to stick with because I'm so confident in the benefits of breastfeeding and I very much enjoy our nursing relationship.  There are just some days if feels like a lot of work. Every Monday I start counting down to the weekend by how many pumping sessions I have left until Friday where I can just be, and just breastfeed my daughter. No pump, no parts, and no bottles. Freedom.

I began pumping and storing breast milk while I was on maternity leave at the recommendation of several other working and breastfeeding moms. The strategy is to provide yourself a nice little "freezer stash" for once you return to work and on days you are not able to pump enough to meet your baby's needs, you will have some breast milk to thaw out and send to school. I started pumping about 1-2 times aday in addition to breastfeeding at about 4 weeks postpartum,  I felt pretty comfortable with my little stash when I returned to work after 7 weeks.

I have been incredibly blessed by only having to dip into my freezer stash once, ever.  I also pump about 20-30 ounces extra from what I need to send to daycare a week.  Additionally, Olivia reversed-cycled for the first 4 weeks she was at daycare, meaning she would eat VERY little during the school day and compensate for it the minute we got home and throughout the night. Lucky me, right?

It was actually a blessing at the time.  I missed her so much when I first returned to work and was incredibly flattered by her preference of me versus the bottle. I also loved the time we got to spend together in the evening and night, even when it meant very little sleep. Thankfully the reverse-cycling eventually ended, but it meant that I had a huge surplus of expressed breast milk that I had continued to store and freeze. Our freezer was full. I had over 250 ounces that I did not know what to do with, and it killed me to think that I may have to throw it away.

My mother in law suggested that I try and contact La Leche League to donate some of my expressed breast milk. I looked into the LLL as well as the Austin Area Milk Bank about making donations. Both organizations required a large initial donation as well as an extensive screening process. The thought of all of that stressed me out, and with the return to work and very little sleep, I didn't feel like I could go through that process. I also had a strange feeling about donating my milk to an organization where a mom would have to pay for the milk, either out of her own pocket or through her health insurance company. I know a lot of the money goes towards the screening and pasteurization of the milk, but I still didn't like the thought of that.

I came across a group on Facebook (Human Milk for Human Babies & Eats On Feets) that helps link together moms that have extra frozen expressed breast milk with those that need it for their babies for a ton of different reasons. The idea seemed so strange and foreign to me at first. Like, someone else was seriously going to feed her baby my breast milk?! Whyyyyyy??? But then I realized that these mommas are doing whatever they can to provide their baby with breast milk when for whatever reasons their own bodies would not allow for it.

Well, I got in contact with a nearby mom awhile ago and I was able to meet her and give her about 200 ounces from my frozen stash. It felt so good! Since then my stash has continued to grow and I am ready to make another smaller donation to this same mom and baby once we are able to coordinate our crazy schedules. I love being able to help out another mom, even if it is just ever so slightly. It also makes me feel like all of this pumping and cleaning and storing is not only for my own baby, but I'm also helping another baby.  I guess that's when my true social worker type heart comes out. 

I don't want to get too deep about all of this because I know it's not like I'm out there helping to cure cancer or anything, but I did want to put this out there.  If, for whatever reason, anyone ever needs this type of information. 

Additionally, I ran all of this by Olivia first, she approved and was just as excited.